Notre Dame and the culture it inspired – from Matisse to the Muppets

It mesmerised Proust, terrified Homer Simpson and gave us the Hunchback - Guardian critics celebrate Paris's gothic masterpiece at the heart of the modern imagination

As Notre Dame Cathedral's majestic spire tumbled into the inferno on Monday night, live newsreaders around the world decried the tragic loss of this 12th-century marvel. The great timber roof - nicknamed "the forest" for the thousands of trees used in its beams - was gone, the rose windows feared melted, the heart of Paris destroyed forever. What few realised in the heat of the shocking footage was that much of what was ablaze was a 19th-century fantasy. Like most buildings of this age, Notre Dame is the sum of centuries of restorations and reinventions, a muddled patchwork of myth and speculation.